


Escape the Night – TF AU: Delta’s Past…With a Twist Part One

by Dede42



Series: ETN - The History of Delta Hatcher [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Multi-Fandom, Original Work, Our ETerNity Together (Web Series AU)
Genre: Bullying, Dreams, Elementary School, Family, Family History, High School, Marching Band, Middle School
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26648230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dede42/pseuds/Dede42
Summary: My name is Delta and I always thought I knew my family history…but ever since I got pulled into The Fugitive AU timeline, I've discovered that there are memories hidden from me.Does this mean there's more to my family history then I first thought?
Series: ETN - The History of Delta Hatcher [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1938859
Comments: 28
Kudos: 2





	1. PROLOGUE: FAMILY HISTORY

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ETNMystic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ETNMystic/gifts), [NervousAliceCurious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAliceCurious/gifts), [SummerInAmsterdam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerInAmsterdam/gifts).
  * Inspired by [EtN - The Fugative AU: My Name is Cyrille](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24343912) by [SummerInAmsterdam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerInAmsterdam/pseuds/SummerInAmsterdam). 



> Hello, world and welcome back to Escape the Night!
> 
> Hi, so ever since I got involved in The Fugitive AU RP, I have been building up my character, Delta Hatcher, and I have decided to share her back story. Onward!

**PROLOGUE: FAMILY HISTORY**

*****

Nearly everyone on Earth has done their family history to some extent, and one of the biggest family history research center was based in Salt Lake City, Utah. There it was possible to do extensive research on family history, help others do the research, and even help with the organization of the records kept stored both in paper form and digitally.

All over the world, records for family histories have been gathered and stored, enabling even one of the Popes to be able to do family history to learn more about his own ancestors.

I have done family history and because of this, I have made some interesting discoveries, including being related to a U.S. senator who was also a Grandmaster Freemason. What’s ironic about this particular discovery, I was looking at a list of known Freemasons in the United States, and his name was on the list.

Later on, while taking a Mormon Literature class when I was still in college, I discovered that when my ancestor ran for president for his second try, he was running against Joseph Smith Jr., and when the prophet sent letters to my ancestor and to the others running for president at that time for help because of how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my ancestor was the only one to respond with polite regret that he couldn’t help the church at that time.

However, what if there was more to the family history of certain people that wasn’t know? What if something was being kept from certain people in order to protect them? And if the truth came out, how would those people react to it?

My name is Delta Hatcher, and this is my story…which has more to it then even I was lead to believe, and what I reveal could very well change your view of the world itself.


	2. CHAPTER ONE: “IT’S JUST A DREAM…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, world and welcome back to Escape the Night!
> 
> Yup, it's time to know my backstory, which will have some twists in it. Onward!

**CHAPTER ONE** **: “** **IT’S JUST A DREAM…”**

*****

_Meryn, a kingdom of beauty, happiness, and peace. It is filled with all kinds of wildlife, all kinds of plants, and the population live in twelve clans that each had a ruler that answered to the head ruler: King David Solaris, his wife Queen Hermione Solaris, and their young daughter Princess Delta Solaris._

_Nearly every person in the kingdom has a form of elemental magic, which is used to help with the continued prosperity of the kingdom and its’ inhabitants: human, animal, insect, and magical creatures._

_The people of Meryn also have a respective animal companion, sort of like a familiar, and for the head ruler and his family, their animal companions are white Bengal Tigers. For an untold period of time, there was peace in Meryn, along with the other kingdoms that they did trades with, including the Land of Fiction, the Faerie Kingdom, and during this time, Princess Delta began developing her ice powers._

_This power she was born with was a rare power, but it was also highly admired by the people, for the high princess, fueled by her happiness and strong imagination, created beautiful and fun snow/ice statues and slides for the children of the kingdom to enjoy, and it was believed that she would be the most beautiful and kindest ruler to ascend to the throne when she was old enough._

_Princess Delta spent her days, playing with her baby tiger, Jasmine, running around and playing with the other children, practicing her power, and being tutored by a special ring that she wore on her right hand just about everyday._

_However, that changed with the attacks on both the Land of Fiction and the Faerie Kingdom by the Cursed God and his minions, resulting in the princesses of the two kingdoms being forced to flee, only for the princess of the Faerie Kingdom being captured for a time before eventually returning home to her mother._

_Because of these attacks, King David had no choice but to seal the borders of Meryn to ensure the safety of both his people and his family, fearing of what could happen if Princess Delta was captured for her ice powers, and was forced to use them for evil intent._

_And so, there was no means of either entering or leaving the kingdom…or so they thought._

*****

“ _Princess Delta! Slow down!”_

_I giggled as I ran through the royal gardens with Jasmine, whose giggles I could hear inside my mind thanks to our bond, running alongside me, and my poor nanny, Daphne Marble and her animal companion Luke the rabbit, were giving chase in an effort to catch me as this wasn’t the first time that I’ve run off when I was suppose to be napping._

_“Please, princess! It’s time for your nap!”_

_“You have to catch me first, Daphne!” I giggled, waving my hand to create a flight of ice stairs that went to the top of the hedge wall that surrounded the royal gardens, and, after scooping Jasmine into my arms, ran up them. “Hehehe!!!”_

_Halfway up the flight of stairs – a wall of Earth shattered through the stairs, cutting off my access, and so I made an ice slide, which I used to go down, reaching the gate, where I was stopped by the captain of the royal guard, Captain Prokopis Ragnis and his animal companion Ralph the fox. “Oh…hi.”_

_“Princess,” said Prokopis, fixing me with a stern look as Daphne ran up. “I think you should listen to your nanny.”_

_`“I concur,”` said my tutor, and I pouted. `“Getting plenty of rest is important for children, even for a princess.”`_

_I sighed. “All right, all right.” And I let Daphne escort me back into the castle, and up to my bedroom._

*****

_“I’m sorry,” I told my nanny as she tucked me and Jasmine into my bed, for I was quite tired from running around so much earlier, and I gave her the cutest look that I could with the hope of her accepting my apology. “I just wanted to play.”_

_“And now when you get up from your nap,” said Daphne, smiling gently, “you’ll have_ plenty _of energy to play. Now go to sleep.”_

_I nodded, cuddled with Jasmine, and was just starting to drift off – when there was a loud explosion from outside the castle walls, followed by loud shouts and screams that jolted me to being wide awake. “What was that? What’s going on?!”_

_Before Daphne could answer, the doors to my bedroom burst open, and both of my parents ran inside. “Your highnesses! What is going on?”_

_“No time.” My father scooped me out of the bed, placing me in my mother’s arms while his animal companion, Onyx, ran to the large bay window and growled as there were more explosions going on, along with more shouting and screaming. “Beloved, take Delta and get out of here,_ now _.”_

_“Be safe, my love,” said my mother, giving my father a quick kiss on the lips while her animal companion, and Jasmine’s mother, Belle, scooped Jasmine into her mouth, and we ran out of my bedroom, being followed by Daphne and Luke._

*****

_“My Queen,” Daphne gasped, following mother and I through the halls of the castle. “Who is attacking and how is this possible? I thought the borders are sealed.”_

_“They_ were _sealed,” my mother corrected her, stopping and used her Earth power to move aside a wall section, revealing a secret passage that we entered. “But we were betrayed from within, and now the minions of the Curse God have entered our lands. The other tribes are fighting the minions, but I must protect my daughter, I must!”_

_I was confused and scared as my mother went through several additional secret passages, narrowly avoiding the bad people that were destroying my home, and then we eventually reached a large circular room that had a single golden framed mirror standing in the middle with the frame engraved with images of plants and wildlife. “Mama…”_

_“Shh, you will be all right, little Delta,” my mother told me, gently kissing my forehead, and she took out a pale blue purle, which she placed in the top of the mirror frame, and the surface of the mirror rippled until it became a pale purple portal. “You and Jasmine are going to go someplace safe for a while,” she promised, hugging me and kissing my forehead once again._

_Jasmine was placed in my arms as I was placed on the floor, still confused and scared as I held my baby tiger close. “But, mama, aren’t you coming with me?” I asked. “And what about papa?”_

_“Your father and I will join you and Jasmine as soon as we can,” my mother promised me with her sweet smile. “Right now, I need you to go through this portal, where you’ll be safe with a friend of the family. Her name is Fl-”_

_There was a loud explosion and the door to the room shattered, sending splinters of wood flying everywhere, and both my mother and Daphne shielded us with their bodies._

_I peered around them, shivering in fear when I saw in the ruined entrance a woman with pink hair pulled back in pigtails, a woman with long red hair and red eyes, and several other scary-looking beings, I whimpered with fear. “Mama…scary…”_

_“Daphne, get Delta through the portal_ now _,” my mother ordered, rising and turned to face the threat. “You cannot have my daughter._ Leave _!”_

_The red-eyed woman smirked. “Oh, Hermione, do you_ really _think you can stop me?”_

_“Or even me?” the pink pigtailed girl cackled. “Your brat is going to be Cursey, and you ain’t got the f*ing balls to- oof!” She got knocked backwards into the wall when my mother sent a section of the floor flying into her chest._

_My mother kept up her attack, forcing the red-eyed woman and the beings to scatter for cover, while Daphne scooped up both myself and Jasmine, and ran for the portal, lifting up a part of the floor to use as a shield from the attacking minions while I clung to her neck._

_We were halfway to the portal – when there was a loud noise, and the gem that my mother had placed in the top shattered, causing the portal to go from pale purple to a chaotic mess of dark colors. There was a second loud noise – and suddenly I fell to the floor with Jasmine with a pained grunt, and when I sat up, I screamed when I saw Daphne lying on face-first on the floor with blood forming on her back and Luke was lying motionless nearby._

_“No! Nanny!” I was panicking, which meant that show and ice were starting to form around me, as a woman with dark hair, and holding a smoking weapon, approached me, followed by the pink ponytail girl. “G-get get back!”_

_“Ooh, look at her tremble,” the pink ponytail girl sneered. “I think we should just put her- ow!”_

_The red-eyed woman appeared and yanked_ hard _on one of her ponytails. “The princess isn’t be harmed by you, Junko,” she scolded, shoving her away so hat she collided with the other girl, and they fell into a heap on the floor, stunning them. “The Cursed God wants her intact.” She then turned to face me with a cold smile on her face. “Now, my dear little Delta. Why-?”_

_Jasmine snarled and leapt at the red-eyed woman – and she got knocked into the portal, disappearing from sight._

_“Jasmine!” I screamed and ran for the portal, only to be snatched up by the red-eyed woman. “no! Let me go! Jasmine! Mama! Someone!”_

_“Shhh,” the red-eyed woman cooed, slipping my ring off my hand, despite my struggling against her, and tossed it into the portal right before it powered down. “Now, now, it’ll be ok, little Delta.” She then cradled me in her arms so that I ended up making eye-contact with her red eyes, that were now glowing, and I couldn’t look away, no matter how hard I tried. “Don’t be scared,” she said softly. “Just focused on my eyes and my voice.”_

_I couldn’t look away from those red eyes…those pretty red eyes…_

*****

“Red eyes…red…” I gasped and sat up in my bed, panting. “Eyes!”

The door to the bedroom that I was sharing with my little sister Stephanie, opened and my dad came inside, going over to my side of the room, and hugged me as I cried. “It’s ok, it’s ok, Delta. Did you have that bad dream again?”

I nodded, still crying. “Yes, yes…it was the same dream…the red eyes…”

“It’s ok,” my dad said, hugging me and rubbed my back to help me calm down. “It’s ok, it’s just a dream. That’s all it is, it’s just a dream.”

I was seven years old at this time, and for as long as I could remember, I had that same dream whenever I was upset, scared, angry, or even really sick. And for me, that’s all it was, a dream, a recurring dream.

Little did I know, however, it wasn’t just a dream, it was something _more_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it just a dream, or something more? Bye for now! R&R everyone!


	3. CHAPTER TWO: ODD OCCURRENCES

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, world and welcome back to Escape the Night!
> 
> Time for more of my backstory, and remember, this is a mixture of my real life with some fictional stuff thrown in. Onward!

**CHAPTER TWO: ODD OCCURRENCES**

*****

As time went back and I got older, the dream came less often, but it didn’t completely disappear either, and then there were times when there was odd things happening that didn’t make sense at the time, but I never considered the possibility that they were connected to the dream itself, and maybe if I had been able to connect them, then things could’ve turned out differently…maybe.

*****

The first strange occurrence happened when my parents and I lived in a different apartment building, although the memory itself is vague since I was three years old at the time, but I recalled there was a strange person hanging around in the morning, and again when it was starting to get dark. And what made it stranger, was that I was the only one who saw the person.

My parents didn’t, neither did anyone who happened to walk past the person, and then we moved to a different apartment since birds had started nesting in the roof of the building, causing issues, and I never saw that person again.

But there were other things that were strange that happened while my parents and I lived in the second apartment that wasn’t far from the elementary school that I would attend for kindergarten and first grade, and that was that I would sometimes get the impression that I was being watched, but there would be no one there whenever I would look.

It did stop for a while, after my parents had my sister Stephanie, but then there was an incident that brought back both the memories and the feeling that I was being watched, and that was when I was in kindergarten.

*****

I was out in the front yard of the apartment, having stayed home from school because of pink eye, I saw a woman interacting with a big black dog, which then ran over to me when I stood up – and the next thing I knew, it was clawing and licking me at the same time.

I started screaming and crying, and I made the mistake of trying to run away from the dog, getting knocked down, and so I covered my head while still crying and screaming. My mom came running outside, along with two of our male neighbors, and they helped get the dog off of me while my mom picked me up and got me inside.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the dog had bit my mom on the finger, but what I did know, was that I was in pain, I was scared, and I was _really_ upset. My mom cleaned me up, bandaged me, and was caring for me when dad came home from work.

He was upset about what happened, learned that animal control had picked up the dog, which was more like an overgrown puppy, and while he was sure that I would recover physically, he was more worried about what it would do to me emotionally and mentally. Basically, I developed a fear of big dogs, and would jump whenever I would hear a dog bark.

What I didn’t tell my parents, was that right before I got attacked by the dog, I thought I saw the woman direct the dog toward me. Of course everything happened so fast, that I’d probably imagined it, and yet, the timing of it all.

Anyway, that moment passed, I did recover physically, and then, later on, got traumatized by a bunch of balloons popping on the grass, but that was my own fault and no one else.

*****

In first grade, there were a couple of times when one of my classmates thought they saw my dad at the far end of the schoolyard during recess, and would direct me there. But when I would go check, there would be no one there, and I figured that they were seeing things…although I did see s strange man one of those times, but he left really quickly, so I’m not sure if he was there or not.

*****

When we moved into the house that I’ve been living in since with my parents and sisters, I had to get used to being in a new neighborhood, trying to make friends wasn’t easy since some of the kids, the ones who were a year older then me, chose to pick on me for they realized that there was something different about me that even I didn’t know about, and the few who did become friends with me, they did so just because they felt sorry for me.

Being in a neighborhood out in farmlands was different from the neighborhood that was more in the city, and yet, it was neat to live in an actual house. Yes, Stephanie and I did share a bedroom, but I was used to that, having done it in the apartment, there was plenty of room for us, and my mom was able to have a proper garden in the backyard.

That first summer at the house, my dad got us a swing set that he set up in the backyard, which is still there for the use of my nephews, and we loved playing on it, especially the slide and the swings. We also had a plastic sandbox shaped like a green turtle, which was also fun, and there weren’t any strange occurrences for a while…at least not until school began.

And that was when both the dream returned, and the occurrences began once again.

*****

I didn’t know it at the time, but before school started, I was tested for what was, at that time, to be a learning disability, and that arrangements were made with my parents to be taken out of class for speech therapy, help with reading, writing, and math.

Now, when I was in kindergarten and first grade at my old school, I did get taken out of class for speech therapy as I struggled with making the ‘th’ sound, so that made sense, and I was also getting help with walking on a balance beam. For there was a time when I couldn’t walk on a balance beam to save my life as my center of gravity wasn’t where it was supposed to be, and I got help.

Now for second grade onward, it was speech therapy, math, writing, and reading for a period of time. And my parents chose to not to tell me that I had a disability until I finally asked during my junior year of high school, and that was probably for the best, given that I was dealing with a serious bullying problem.

Certain people at the school were turning a blind eye as they thought that the kids were just being kids, that I was being too sensitive, and if I was able to get through the school day without being bullied, it was a miracle.

*****

One of the times when I came home on the school bus, it’d been a semi-decent day for a change as I was in third grade by this point, largely because some of the bullies hadn’t been at school that day, and I’d managed to get a good grade on a spelling test for a change.

So I was really happy when I ran up to the front door, and went inside to let my parents know. I did pause on the stairs when I heard my parents talking in the kitchen, and I crouched down so that I could peer up at them without them seeing me. And since they were distracted by what they were talking about, they hadn’t heard me come in.

“Delta has been having that nightmare again,” said my mom, seated at the kitchen table and was looking worried. “The one that ends with those red eyes that she says has been glowing.”

“You sure it’s that same dream?” my dad asked as he put dirty dishes into the dishwasher. “Because I haven’t heard much crying from her and Stephanie’s bedroom these past few nights. Not since the chicken pox’s.”

My mom sighed. “I was gathering up dirty clothes from their room, and I found a shoebox tucked away in the back of the closet that had a corner of paper sticking out of it,” she explained, and I felt my stomach dropped, for I knew what she’d found. “And I was curious to see what was inside it, figuring that either Delta or Stephanie was hiding it because of an idea from one of the books they’ve been reading. So I removed the box and opened it, finding that it was filled with papers with writing and drawings of red eyes on them, and it was Delta’s handwriting.”

My dad paused and looked at her, concern etching itself across his face. “So, instead of telling us when she’s having the nightmare, Delta has been writing about it and drawing the eyes she keeps seeing in the nightmare?”

“Yes, and in a way it makes sense,” said my mom. “Sometimes if talking about something doesn’t help it go away, then writing about it can help instead. I just wish Delta hadn’t hidden those writings from you and I. She knows she can talk to us, just like whenever she gets bullied at school.”

_‘Dang it,’_ I thought, knowing full well what my mom had found. Yes I had taken to writing down the details of the dream, along with drawing the red eyes, but I wasn’t even sure if I was getting them right, and I’d hidden them, not from my parents, but from Stephanie to keep her from getting scared by what I was experiencing. _‘It’s bad enough that my bullies have tried to go after Stephanie for just being my sister. She doesn’t need to know that I have a repeating bad dream.’_

I straightened and went the rest of the way up the stairs, and my parents stopped talking when they saw me. “Mommy, daddy, I heard what you were talking about,” I told them, “and the reason I had that box hidden with those writings, it was to keep them from Stephanie, for I didn’t want her to get scared by them.”

My parents were glad to hear this, were happy to see my good grade on my spelling test, were also happy that my school day had been descent for a change, and life went on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I could get through a day at school without being bullied, then it was a good day indeed, and it didn't happen often either. Bye for now! R&R everyone!


	4. CHAPTER TRHEE: SCHOOL AND A CAT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, world and welcome back to Escape the Night!
> 
> Hey, y'all! Time for more of my, well Delta's, backstory! Onward!

**CHAPTER TRHEE: SCHOOL AND A CAT**

*****

A year later, there was an incident at the school that finally made the staff, plus the students who were there at the time, start to realize that something had to be done to stop the bully problem, and the incident, involved me and someone who I’d thought was a friend until she’d tried to isolate me from the other kids in an attempt to make sure that I was her only friend.

It was around this time that I learned that her mom wasn’t married, that she had boyfriends, and my dad suspected that these boyfriends were doing things to her at home. Anyway, the incident went like this: It was afternoon recess and I had gone inside the school to use the restroom, and it was when I was heading for the door, that she appeared.

She tried to trap me in the restroom by blocking my way with her arm, but I ducked underneath it and ran down the hallway for the doors leading outside to the playground, hoping that if I got out there, then I could find safety with the teachers on recess duty, even if they weren’t going to do anything to help with the problem.

A girl I knew who was in third grade, saw what was going on, grabbed my hand, and we ran out the doors together – where the next thing I knew was that I was being shoved from behind, she lost her grip, and I went sprawling on the hard ground, scraping both of my knees and my right elbow.

I was in pain, I was crying, and much to my surprise, several students from my fourth grade class helped me up, revealing that most of the students were gathered around, and the teachers were _actually_ getting involved by catching the bully and not believing her when she insisted that someone else had pushed me to the ground.

I went to the nurse’s office, where the nurse did make sure that I hadn’t scraped my chin, which I hadn’t much to my surprise, and my parents arrived, having been called by the school. They had another serious talk with the principle, who had to admit that what happened to me wasn’t just kids playing, and it was after the girl was suspended that the teachers on recess duty started getting their act together.

Some of the girls who’d been bullying me actually stopped, and to be honest, there was very little bullying after the incident.

*****

There was something else that happened while I was in fourth grade that was a nice surprise. One morning when I was getting ready for school, I was heading down the stairs to get something I needed from the family room, when I thought I heard meowing from the front porch, and so I peered through the side window.

Sitting on the front porch and staring up at me was a brown tabby kitten with green eyes, and the kitten meowed again, clearly wanting to come inside. I let my parents know about the kitten, and, after trying and failing to get the kitten to leave, we adopted the kitten, figured out he was a he, and I named him Tiger for his stripes.

Having Tiger in my life was wonderful for the period of time that we had him, and I have a lot of fond memories of him, especially the memories of him leaping through the snow in the backyard like a deer in an attempt to keep his tummy dry.

*****

Time went by, the bullying eventually started up again, but it wasn’t as bad as before, although there was this sixth grade girl with a disability who made my life hard in fifth grade, and yet, we eventually became friends instead for the rest of fifth grade. I’m still not sure of how that happened, but it did, and it made life easier in the end.

*****

When I was due to start sixth grade, I found out that my mom was pregnant, and I was excited for I was hoping to get a brother this time around. Good thing, too, for that was also the time when the girl who hurt me in fourth grade was returning to the school, and the bullying was starting to get bad again because of certain boys in my six grade class.

I did my level best to avoid the girl, which wasn’t easy, the dream was coming back because of the stress, and then my future sibling decided to come a week early. I ended up getting another sister named Amanda, who has Down Syndrome and, later on, severe Autism, and two things happened that got the bullies to back down until graduation.

The first thing that happened was during PE class, where our teacher had us do a sort of trust exercise, where we split up into pairs of two, one of us being blindfolded, and those who were blindfolded, they would be guided around the gym by their partner until they were ready to trade us off to another classmate.

I was honestly nervous since I knew that, given half a chance, certain classmates would love nothing better to either leave me standing in the middle of the gym, or even have me run into the walls, even though those were against the rules.

I ended up being blindfolded, I was guide around by a girl in my class until she let go of my hand, and I stood there for several seconds, wondering if someone would take my hand, or if I would be left there. I did tense up when someone grabbed my hand to start guiding me, but when the PE teacher said that it was her, I did relax, and for the remainder of the class period, she guided me around the gym until she had me sit down on the floor.

I sat there, waiting until all of my classmates were all siting down, and we were instructed to remove our blindfolds. I did remove my blindfold and found that I’d been seated a short distance away from my classmates. I had been confused, but then the PE teacher talked with them about what she’d observed during the class, including how I reacted when she’d taken my hand.

Basically, she told them that it was clear to her that I didn’t have much trust in my classmates, and I knew that she was right. Some of them were, to an extent, friends, and that was only because they felt sorry for me as I figured out years later.

The second incident happened a while later, during near the end of class, when we all were getting balloons for the world globe project, and some of the boys decided to mess around with the balloons, knowing full well that I didn’t like it when balloons popped.

I did ask them to stop repeatedly, but they wouldn't, and it was after one of them kicked their balloon against a metal edge on the case that held the TV, causing it to pop, that my teacher stepped in and gave the entire class a serious scolding while I was in tears at the loud noise.

The bullying didn’t end that day, but it was slowed down once again, and the remainder of the school year was fairly uneventful. Yeah, those boys did try to stop me from going to accept my graduation paper by shoving chairs in front of me when my name got called, but I just shoved the chairs back and didn’t even look at them.

*****

There was something that happened that I didn’t mention before, and that was that Tiger ran away. My dad made the mistake of letting Tiger out one night, and we never saw him again. Tiger wasn’t the only pet that went missing, and it was much later on that I would learn that one of our neighbors had been responsible for stealing pets, killing them, and burying them in his yard until he was caught and arrested by the police.

Losing Tiger was hard on me, even though I had my pet goldfish, I missed having a cat around the house, and for several nights after Tiger disappeared, I had that dream again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was years before I figured out what this particular neighbor had done to so many pets. I don't know why he did it, but I'm glad that he's no longer in the neighborhood. Bye for now! R&R everyone!


	5. CHAPTER FOUR: FALLING AND FOUND

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, world and welcome back to Escape the Night!
> 
> Time for more backstory. Onward!

**CHAPTER FOUR: FALLING AND FOUND**

*****

Jasmine’s POV:

_I was falling!_

_So many bright colors!_

_It hurts!_

_Where’s my Mama?!_

_Where’s my Papa?!_

_Where’s Delta?!_

_Help!_

_Please help…please…please…h…_

*****

I slowly became aware of being somewhere else, lying on soft grass, and having my fur being licked by a familiar rough tongue. I opened my eyes a little and saw my mother was giving me a bath, and that we were in our hovel in the Animal Sanctuary within the Temple of Oak. “Mama…?”

“Yes, little one?” my mother asked, pausing in licking my fur. “What is it?”

“I had a bad dream about falling,” I said, yawning a little. “There were bright colors…I was scared.”

My mother smiled softly and rubbed the top of my head with her own. “It was just a dream, little one. You’re safe with me and you’ll _always_ be safe with me.”

I purred a little and as she went back to licking my fur, I went back to sleep, feeling safe and secured.

*****

The Collector’s POV:

I was overseeing the construction of a new exhibit for my museum, one that I had been long desiring to have for quite some time, and when the time was right, I would obtain the souls that would reside in it. But I knew that it would be a long time before it would happen, and I largely blamed the Cursed God for the delay.

He and I didn’t get along, even though I had in my vault something that he intrust to me long ago, and due to his interference on Earth, there was a certain soul that I had been unable to collect. This soul was special in a way that intrigued me greatly, and to have her soul in my collection would make it the star attraction for my museum.

Unfortunately, the Cursed God _also_ wanted her and her soul, but for a very different reason, and while I understood why, I did consider it to be selfish of him to interfere with _my_ plans by going after her before she was ready in the first place.

_‘If he had waited like I’d advised him,’_ I thought sourly, _‘then the barrier between fiction and reality would’ve gone down much sooner. But no, he had to act rashly, and now, thanks to the interference of Hecate, the soul of Lydia Waverly is doomed to be reborn inside her descendants until the magic 8_ _th_ _dies so that her soul can_ finally _ascend to heaven.’_

I sighed and shook my head to rid myself of those thoughts, for there was nothing I could do about that, except to prepare for when the magic 8th was born and old enough for the exhibit that I was certain would be her home for all eternity.

It wasn’t the only new exhibit that was being made in advance, but for now, it was the one that I was focusing on the most, and I wanted to be sure that it would be _exactly_ right for when the magic 8th was finally among the living in the real world.

Yes, this was going to be the _perfect_ exhibit for her to live in, and even if she didn’t want to, I had a backup plan just in cause.

I sensed a magic buildup forming outside the walls of the museum, and I went to investigate, for when this happened, it usually meant that a dimensional portal was going to open somewhere, and that something was coming through it that I would then find a place for in my museum.

*****

Exiting through the main doors, I stopped and peered up at the stormy green sky, which was fairly constant in this part of Purgatory, and sure enough, I could see that a dimensional portal was indeed forming high above me.

I watched and waited as the multi-colored portal opened long enough for something small to come shooting out of it before it sealed itself an again, and as the small thing came hurtling at me, I used my magic to slow it down.

I watched and waited as it slowly floated down, landing on the palm of my hand, and I raised my eyebrows when I saw that it was a ring made out of a silver metal with tiny silver leaves, a few flowers with diamonds in them, and the central stone looked to be a smoky blue opal.

I could also sense that there was some kind of dormant magic within the ring, and being intrigued, I took it inside with me to study it further.

*****

I entered my study and went work on studying the magic within the ring, conducting a series of tests, and when I saw the results, I smirked.

_‘Ah, that makes sense,’_ I thought, making a report to file away. _‘This is one of the rings from Meryn, and if I am right, this belongs to their missing princess.’_

I knew of the kingdom as I had been there once before I began the path that I now walked, and the elemental magic there was impressive, especially the rare ice powers found only among certain members of the royal family.

_‘The Cursed God attacked Meryn not too long ago,’_ I thought, finishing the report and filed it away before picking up the ring as I stood up. _‘That was_ his _mistake, and the princess disappeared. And no one knows where she went or if she’s even alive.’_ I looked at the ring. _‘But I am_ certain _that she still lives, and that she will eventually come here. I am_ sure _of it.’_

Summoning my staff to my hand, I left my study to go to a certain exhibit, for I knew _exactly_ where to store the ring, and who to intrust it to as well.

*****

Scheherazade’s POV:

I was overseeing the rehearsal for my latest story that I was writing out as the actors rehearsed on the stage, and I knew this would be one of my best stories yet, for the amount of tragic events in it was already making my skin tingle with delight.

Of course I would have to wait a bit for the first tragic event of my new story, for I sensed that I was about to have company, and I turned just as a red portal opened and The Collector came out. I immediately bowed the moment the portal closed.

“Mistress, I am at your service,” I said, looking at her as I straightened up while the bellydancers herded away the actors from the stage. “How may I be of service?”

“This came into my possession quite recently,” said The Collector, opening her hand to reveal a ring, and I could tell that it wasn’t a normal ring. “I do not know how long it will take for the owner to come for it, but I believe you have a tent in which to store things that have been… _lost_.”

I knew which tent she spoke of, and I nodded. “Yes, of course,” I agreed, graciously taking the ring from her hand. “I shall take the ring to the Tent of Lost Things personally.”

“Excellent.”

I waited until The Collector left through her portal, and I went to fulfill my task for her as I would do whenever she had need of my services.

*****

I entered the tent where lost items were stored, which was already quite full, given how many things were lost that ended up arriving at the museum, and I set the ring on a table that was already brimming with various kinds of items.

_‘There,’_ I thought, smirking a little. _‘I may not know the story behind this ring, but I’m sure that it’s an_ interesting _story.’_

I then left the tent to return to the rehearsal and my new tragic story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To explain how Jasmine ended up in that temple and how the ring ended up in the museum.
> 
> Bye for now! R&R everyone!


	6. CHAPTER FIVE: MIDDLE SCHOOL ISSUES

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, world and welcome back to Escape the Night!
> 
> It's time for Delta's middle school years. Onward!

**CHAPTER FIVE: MIDDLE SCHOOL ISSUES**

*****

Now before I go onto middle school, there was something that happened back when I was seven years old that I failed to mention, something that did have an impact on my life, and that was the death of my grandfather Darrell, my dad’s father. He passed away in his sleep due to sudden cardiac arrest, and the same thing happened to my dad’s brother, Gary, when he was just seventeen years old.

I bring these up, because there would be other family-related incidents that would be impacting my life later on, and I feel that this was important to share.

Anyway, once I was out of elementary school, I had managed to overcome my struggle with the ‘th’ sound for the most part, and it was time to prepare and face middle school. That summer, I both took up tennis as I was interested in the sport, and I also took a summer band class, so I could play the clarinet like my dad.

And it was a good thing that I decided to take up playing the clarinet and being in band, for it was that one thing that kept me from crashing and burning when it came to surviving 7thgrade, and if it hadn’tbeen for band, I don’t think I would be here right now.

Anyway, it was a struggle for 7thgrade for several reasons, one of them being that my dad had taken up a technical writing job in California, so that he wasn’t home that often, so it was hard on my mom with her caring for Amanda, and making sure that Stephanie and I were going to school and getting our homework done.

The middle school I attended for 7thgrade, had problems, and so my memories of the place are mixed, and as I said before, if it hadn’t been for band, I don’t think I would’ve survived at all. It was hard going from elementary school, where you were mostly just in a single classroom, to going to different classrooms for different classes, and I found out later on that, for some stupid reason, no one at the middle school bothered to look at my school file.

Had anyone _actually_ looked at my school file that year, things might’ve not have been so struggling, and my mom wouldn’t have had to have a serious talk with my teachers, getting through to them that I had a learning disability.

Another thing that made 7thgrade a struggle, was that there was, for me, an increase of bullying problems, and very few of the kids from my elementary years even made an effort to be friends during that time. It was also around this time that I got exposed to the movie _Jurassic Park_ for the first time in my 7thgrade science class, and I wasn’t prepared for that kind of film genre.

Had we only watched the scientific parts of the movie, I probably would’ve been able to handle it, but no, we watched the _entire_ movie, and the only way that I could cope, was by hiding my head during the parts when certain characters got eaten by one of the meat-eating dinosaurs.

There was a bright moment during that rough year, and that was when we got two new cats. A family in my neighborhood was looking for good homes for the kittens that their cat had given birth to, and my mom chose to take two of the kittens, once they were old enough to leave their mother, when Amanda grabbed the ear of a Tabby-point kitten that was meowing at her.

I was happy to have new cats in my life, for it’d been hard during that time after Tiger disappeared, and on the day when we got the cats who Stephanie and I named Iago and Rajah, for we’d been on an _Aladdin_ kick at the time, I chose to stay at home instead of going to the Salt Lake City airport to pick up our dad.

You see, the moment that Iago and Rajah were brought into the house, they hid themselves under one of the beds, for this was a strange new place, and I figured that it would be better if one of us would stay there for the cats to get used to having someone around.

So once they were gone, taking Amanda with them, I went down into the family room, put on one of the _Star Wars_ movies, VHS since this was before DVDs had been invented, and sat on the couch to watch.

Eventually Iago and Rajah made their way downstairs and into the family room, where I calmly and patiently waited for them to join me, and when they did, they curled up on either side of me, purring. I knew that I’d made the right choice to let them come to me, and because of this, they got use to being in the house.

*****

When 7thgrade came to an end, with my passing all of my classes, partly by the skin of my teeth, I pretty much spent that summer recovering from that traumatic experience. Yeah, I know I didn’t reveal _everything_ that happened during that school year, but you get the idea of how rough it was for me, and then two things happened during that summer that would make 8thgrade more bearable.

The first thing that happened, I resumed tennis lessons, met a girl named Kendall, found out that she was a _Star Trek_ fan, and, after finding additional common interests, we became real friends. The second thing was that the school boundaries were changed, and I would be going to a different middle school for 8thgrade, the same middle school that Kendall would also be attending.

Because of these two events, I was actually looking forward to 8thgrade, and it was a good thing that I had my friendship with Kendall, Kim, and a few others that Kendall introduce me to that summer when we went to see movies like _Twister_ , because I think that it’d gone whole lot different then it actually did.

You see, before school official started, I got to go to the middle school, with my dad who was no longer working in California, and it wasn’t one of my best experiences, due to the fact that I ended up throwing up in one of the trash cans. It was a stomach bug, but it was a rough moment for me, and yet, I did recover.

8thgrade was my recovery year, with some bullying problems, but they weren’t as bad as at the other middle school, and there was this 7thgrade boy who kept trying to steal my planner, which we all got at the beginning of the year, claiming that I’d stolen his. I managed to get him to stop when I finally asked him if he liked me, and his face went five different shades of red, and he stopped after that.

And you know how I said that when I get really sick that dream comes back, that happened during the Christmas season when I got the flu, and boy did I have that dream several times…at least that’s what I _do_ remember. I’ll be honest, that period of time is still a bit hazy since I didn’t really get better until the day before Christmas.

Now, I said that band kept my sane during 7thgrade, well that wasn’t really the case for 8thgrade. I was in band, but the band teacher, she didn’t really have us do that many concerts, she was out a lot so we had a number of substitute teachers, and what was suppose to be an ASL class that my band teacher was also teaching, it was more like Exact English Sign Language instead.

Another thing why I didn’t like some of the substitute teachers, was that one of them did something that ruined the movie _The Music Man_ for me. We had been watching the movie in class, and on the day that we finished the movie, we had a lady sub, and the brass section decided to make small balls of paper to throw at our heads.

That wasn’t the part that ruined the movie experience, the moment that ruined the movie for me, was when the bell rang to signal the end of school for the day, the sub made us all stay after to pick up the balled up papers, even though I pointed out that some of us would miss the bus for the mistake made by others, and she made it clear that she didn’t care.

So, I ended up missing the bus, I had to call home on the school phone, for this was before cellphones, and my mom had to load Amanda into the car and come pick me up. This wasn’t a good day for either of us that was for darn sure, and it didn’t help that I had the same sub for the so-called ASL class the next day.

One of these days, I’m going to steal my dad’s copy of _The Music Man_ , and I’ll watch it the whole through in order to put that bad experience behind me. I did make it through 8thgrade, having managed to recover from the nightmare that’d been 7thgrade, and during that time, my Aunt Lynda got married to a man named Bart.

That, however is a story for another time, for Bart, well, there was something about him that I didn’t know about, and I wished I had, for it would’ve been good know sooner, and what happened one Christmas never would’ve happen…I think?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, the middle school years had their ups and downs, that's for sure. Bye for now! R&R everyone!


	7. CHAPTER SIX: HIGH SCHOOL UPS AND DOWNS PART ONE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, world and welcome back to Escape the Night!
> 
> It's time to see if Delta can survive high school. Onward!

**CHAPTER SIX: HIGH SCHOOL UPS AND DOWNS PART ONE**

*****

I will admit that I was a bit nervous for high school, but something that helped me prepare was both my friends, and getting into the marching band over the summer. The high school got a new band teacher, Mr. Lambert, who discovered that the band program was just about dead, and so he had to rebuild the band program from the ground up.

So, I basically was one of the guinea pigs during that summer and my freshman year of high school, and I didn’t mind, for I found my niche with the band that did offer a certain amount of protection from those who bullied me during that year, and yes, there was another surge of bullying that started up that year.

Middle school did prepare me, to an extent, for high school, and thanks to my friends, I did manage to survive that first year, although there was a few close calls along the way, and the incident with Bart as well. You see, one of the girls in my neighborhood, who was also my next door neighbor at that time, had made friends with some girls, and had told them about me.

Because of this, they started to bully me while she just let it happen, choosing their in-crowd friendship over what I had thought was our friendship, and I felt that I couldn’t trust her anymore after that incident. These girls just didn’t target me, but they also went after my friends, especially during lunch time, and even threatened to hurt Kendall just because she liked to read during lunch.

I did alert the lunchroom staff, and they made sure that it stopped. Of course, that didn’t stop them from causing trouble between classes and after school. But they didn’t dare try to go after me while I was in the band room, which, once again, was becoming a safe haven for me in more ways then one, and I did make another friend in the Resource P.E. class that I had for the school year.

He and I became friends through my whole high school experience, and there was another boy I was friend with for a time…until I caught him ruining a clay box that I’d made for the pottery class because he thought it belonged to a student he didn’t like, and then I stopped him from messing with another piece of pottery that he claimed was his.

He and I ended our friendship, and I found out later on that he and some boys broken into the pottery room in order to do damage, resulting in him getting kicked out of school. And this was all before the Christmas that almost cost me my Christmas spirit for the first time.

For Christmas that year, my mom was pregnant for the third time, and we drove up to Idaho to spend the holiday with my grandparents, my mom’s parents, and we were joined by Aunt Lynda and Bart. Now the few days before Christmas were fun, and Christmas day was also a fun day, but it was in the evening that things went downhill.

I didn’t know this at the time, but Bart had issues, having been abused _a lot_ by his own father, and this resulted in him being _very_ easily triggered by anything that could make him angry. Had I know this, even though I was 15 at the time, then maybe, just maybe, what happened wouldn’t have happened at all…I think.

Like I said, that Christmas was going quite well until that evening, where something happened that made it very hard to call Bart uncle afterwards. The movie, _It’s a Wonderful Life_ , was playing on the TV, I did hush Bart at one point, and after Stephanie made some kind of sound, he took immediate offense to it, yelling at her.

I’d been playing with my new lego set, and when I looked up, he also yelled at me for swearing at him, which I hadn’t, and both Stephanie and I were in tears. My dad yelled at Bart to get out, and he first went upstairs.

Bart did make some demand that my dad apologize to him, which lead to an argument that my dad managed to win without losing his temper, and then Bart left, heading back to his and Aunt Lynda’s house that was still under my aunt’s maiden name.

My dad gave both Stephanie and myself a blessing, but I still had that dream once again, and yet, I did manage to retain my Christmas spirit.

The rest of my freshman year was fairly uneventful, except that there was an incident during the final home game of the football season, and this incident that made it clear that we needed new uniforms for the marching band program. What happened was that it was _really_ cold, we only stayed long enough to do the half-time performance, where I could barely move my fingers, and when we got back to the band room, one of our drummers nearly dropped from hypothermia.

Oh, I also became a big sister again when my mom had my sister Mackenzie, and I did have to struggle with the passing of my great-grandmother Clay, on my dad’s side of the family. And that was basically my first year of high school, and I probably left some stuff out, but that can happen to just about anyone.

*****

My Sophomore year of high school was pretty normal…well, normal with the exception of me getting a _really_ bad cold that triggered my asthma, causing me to get that dream again, and my sister Amanda got sick and was in the hospital for a while.

Despite all of that, it was a decent school year, the marching band managed to get a first-place trophy at a marching band competition, and we also got new band uniforms since Mr. Lambert wasn’t about to make us suffer in those old band uniforms.

Basically Mr. Lambert designed the uniforms that are still being used to this day.

*****

So, the first half of my junior year of high school it was…well, it wasn’t all that great. What I mean is that it started out doing well…but then it started to go downhill, and so my memories of my junior year are mixed. Now the summer that year was fine with marching band, going to Lagoon as part of the marching band tradition, and other stuff that I normally did during the summer.

When school started, it wasn’t all that bad, just the usual getting through the hallways to get to class on time, getting the information of how the class will go, getting the textbooks, and getting to know the teachers if this was the first time that I was having them as a teacher.

And I did have a new teacher, it was for Health class, and the teacher was also the head football couch. Now, he wasn’t the greatest football coach, and as a teacher, well, let’s just say that he was more focused on making sure that the students who were football players passed the class. I discovered that he would put too much information on the board, making it hard for me to write it all down, and when there were tests and quiz’s, they were oral.

I was struggling in my Health class, Kim was taking an auto class, so she wasn’t in band that year, and one time when I went to the school store to see if I could buy something, a boy behind me noticed when I picked up a piece of candy, considered it, and then put it back down. He, however, thought I was going to steal the candy, and when I said no, he began bullying me about it.

Things continued to go downhill with that boy getting one of the football players in my Health class to join in on the bullying, and they would actually wait by the entrance to the Music Wing, which was the hallway in the school that held the rooms for band, orchestra, and choir, in order to bully me and keep me out of the band room, where they knew I would be safe.

It kept getting bad with the bullying, struggling in the Health class, where there was a day, I noted that we were skipping the section on asthma, and when I pointed this out, the coach had the nerve to tell me that asthma wasn’t real.

That hurt, for I knew that asthma was a real thing, I had it, my sister Stephanie has been dealing with it since she was three years old, it’s real!

Anyway, I was also having a bit of a struggle in band, too, and that was due to a number of things: one Mr. Lambert was having the Jazz band play during assemblies instead of the pep band, which was pretty much the marching band, and when there was a band event, whose name I couldn’t remember how to spell since it’s been a long time, the night after performing at a concert, I chose not to go since I was exhausted.

I asked Mr. Lambert if I could make it up the next day, he said no in a way that made to seem like I was going to fail band, and during the assembly, I was upset and certain that my days in the band were going to end.

What was worse, was that my birthday was coming up, my parents weren’t giving out any hints of what was going to happen for it, and when my birthday arrived, they treated it like a normal day and nothing special. Even at school, only my friends told me happy birthday, no one else did, and when I got home, my parents just said “Happy Birthday” as an afterthought while my presents weren’t even wrapped and was just some clothes and a few videos.

That had been my worst birthday, and because of that, I tend to feel nervous for my birthday, not knowing if I will be going through a repeat of that day, or if it’ll turn out great. In the end, Stephanie made it slightly better by giving me her paperback copy of _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone_ as a present.

Yes, I know that the family was still having money issues since my dad was still looking for a job, going from temporary to temporary technical writing job, but you think they would make an effort like they had with Stephanie and Amanda’s birthdays.

I also crossed paths with the girl who’d shoved me down in fourth grade and hadn’t seen since elementary school. Also, I ended up failing my Health class, and I made it clear to both my parents and my guidance counselor, that I would much rather got to a summer school class to make up Health, but that I wanted _nothing_ to do with that coach ever again.

They actually agreed and it turned out that there was going to be a Resource Health class starting up, and because this was during Y2K, there was a lot of fear about what would happen when the new year would begin.

*****

For the Christmas holiday, we traveled by plane to Tennessee, by way of St. Louis and stopping to visit relatives in Arkansas, in order to visit my Grandmother Edith, my dad’s mom, at the retirement home that she moved into. Stephanie and I stayed with her while our parents and our two younger sisters stayed at a motel.

Christmas was nice and we had a good time, but then we all ended up getting sick. We had issues with the airport on the way home, one flight being delayed, and when we missed our flight back to Utah, we stayed overnight in a hotel. We ended up returning home on New Year’s Eve, after picking up our luggage from where luggage got stored if it wasn’t claimed right away, and we tiredly celebrated New Year’s Day at home.

I had only one hope for the new year, that my second semester of high school would be better then the first semester.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah…high school was rough during the first half of my junior year. Bye for now! R&R everyone!


	8. CHAPTER SEVEN: HIGH SCHOOL UPS AND DOWNS PART TWO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, world and welcome back to Escape the Night!
> 
> Time to see how the rest of my junior year of high school goes. Onward!

**CHAPTER SEVEN: HIGH SCHOOL UPS AND DOWNS PART TWO**

*****

By the time that school resumed, I was feeling better, and when the bullies started going after me again, I finally told my dad what was going on. He chose to drop me off at the other end of the music wing, making it possible for me to get into the band room through the other door, and the bullies failed to stop me from getting to safety.

One of the times I got into the band room and was seated at the back of the room to wait for first period, which was the Jazz band class, to end, the two bullies were making faces at the door in an effort to get me to come out, and because I had a good view of their antics, I ended up seeing the choir teacher walked up behind them and pulled them away and out of sight.

After that, neither of them appeared in the music wing after that, which made me suspect that they got in trouble, and the football player, he stopped bulling me altogether. I did tell my dad this, with him figuring that the football player had to been told to stop going after me or lose his place on the team, and yet, I still went through the other door just in case.

*****

Things improved during the second semester, math was going well, english was going well, the girl from elementary school, she and I became friends again since I’d forgiven her and she was happier then she had been, and I finally asked my mom if I had a disability when I had got an invite to attend a special school dance for students in the Resource Program, and she said yes.

Now remember, we didn’t know that it was actually Autism as the tests were done back in 1990, and so I now knew that I had a learning disability that made a lot of sense.

And as for the bully, well I figured out how to get him to stop, and the fact that what I did work, still impresses me even today.

*****

So, because this is Utah, the high school had a building for the Seminary classes, which are run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we had back during the first semester had been learning about the Old Testament. We were going through New Testament, but I knew that there would be a day when the classes would get together, and that was the day when we all would have a chance to bear our testimonies.

Now, I admit that I don’t bear my testimony that often, but I had a strong impression that this was my best shot to get this bully off my back. He and I both had seminary classes, different teachers, as our last period of the day, and so this was my chance.

*****

So the day came, I was nervous, but I was also thrilled when I saw that he was there, and when it came to be my turn, I went to the microphone, joking that I was scared of it since it’d been making loud static noises for almost every testimony bearer, and that got laughs, which helped me calm down enough to bear my testimony.

Now, you need to understand that it isn’t unusual for those bearing their testimonies, both males and females, to get emotional, and as I bore my testimony, I did start getting emotional, and I made a point of quoting one of the ten commandments: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”. Yes, I quoted the ninth commandment, I got emotional, and yet I felt good for doing that. And he stopped bullying me.

*****

Like I said, junior year continued to get better, I had fun on band tour, I went to the dance and had fun, and, much to my surprise, when I was going around with my yearbook, the boy actually came up to me and wrote an apology letter in my yearbook.

That wasn’t the only surprise I got before the semester ended, I also discovered that I’d become popular without even trying, and it was because more people were becoming interested in how the marching band was doing. I was also invited to join the band council for next fall, and I figured, given that Kim was also going to be on the band council, it was because she and I were going to be seniors soon.

Yes, junior year ended on a high note.

*****

Senior year, well it kinda went by fast, at least that’s how it felt to me, and there were a few sour points that year, but it wasn’t as bad as junior year thankfully. I took a few summer classes to cover credits so that I wouldn’t have to take as many classes in the fall, which included the Resource Health class, which I enjoyed _a lot_ , and I passed the class with an A.

There were, however, two sour notes that summer, one was that I got sick for a bit, but I recovered, and when the drumline director was in charge during marching band practice, he had us all marching double-time in a parking lot that had potholes…and I ended up stepping in one of those holes, hurting my right knee.

I made the mistake of not telling my parents, and at the next band practice, I was at one end of one of the lines, and the freshmen in the line weren’t following the rules about what to do when marching around a corner, which mean I had to move faster to catch up and my knee caved on me, forcing me to sit down because of the pain.

My parents were disappointed that I hadn’t told them right away, but I still did marching band during the summer and I still did marching band in the fall, despite my injury. Yeah, I wasn’t going to let it stop me, and yes, I am that stubborn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My knee still hurts from time to time, but I've gotten used to it, and most of the time I can ignore the pain unless it gets really bad and then I do pain killers and a warm rice bag. Bye for now! R&R everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> Could there really be gaps in my family history? Bye for now! R&R everyone!


End file.
